The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-06-04
editorial 8riets.
BY REV. I. M. ATWOOD, D. D.
Canton, N. Y.

kind as he seems to think, in the remark
that In our day ga stage in our intellect
ual development is declaring itself when
mythology, whether moral or immoral. as
a basis for religion. is no longer receiva-
ble." BY mythology" Mr.. Arnold means
any doctrine or religious the ory built on
some event that never occurred, or some
fact which is fiction. The doctrine of the
vicarlous atonement rests on the sup-
posed substitutional sacrifice of Christ
that Is an event which never took place
Is mythology. The doctrine of Trinity
rests on the supposed fact of three per-
sons in the Godhead: that fact is fiction
mythology.
Now when MIR. Arnold figures to hird-
self certain ''stage in our intellectual
development" he is thinking of a very
small, though by no means an insignifi-
cant faction OF mankind. And if we
should leave out of the account the vast
swarms OF the populous East, where
Christianity has as yet made scarcely a
breach in the lines of the great oriental
religions,-if we should confine our esti-
mates exclusively to Christendom, it must
be said that Mr.. Arnolds intellectual
stage has been reached by but a handful
of the Christian host. How long does he
think it will be before mythology" will
cease to be the basis of religion in the
Greek church and the Church in Rome?
What Is the prospect in the Church OF
England or the Church of Scotland?
How soon will anthology" be surrender
ed In the great Methodist, Baptist, Lu-
theran and Presbyterian communions?
Has not Mr.. Arnold made the not un-
usual mistake of confounding himself and
the two or three millions, perhaps, who
agree with him, with all mankind?
"A fragment left by Charles Reade is
published in Good Words. 1t is Mr..
Reade's short and powerful exposition of
the fact that the Hebrew and Christian
Scriptures constitute a Literary Mar
vel" The one point which the novelist
seizes on and presents with convincing
force, is, that the Bible characters excel
in reality and power all others to be met
with In literature. Mr.. Reade compares
in this respect, Thucydides, Herodotus,
Josephus, Virgil and Homer, with the
Bible writer's. He finds that the number
of durahlsscharaot4rs eraatesa % slslin-.
eated by such master spirits OF the
world is less than in the Two little books
called Samuel.
-"The writer of Samuel" says Mr..
Heade sis not great master, like Homer
or Virgil; he is artless and careless to
boot; forgets what he had said few
pages before. and spoils more than one
good incident by putting the cart before
the horse-J mean by false transportation,
by presenting events out of their true and
interesting sequence; sad fault in COM
position. But the characters that rise
from the historical strokes of that rude
pen are immortal; SO solid and full of
color, too. that they stand amid the waves
of time like rocks, carved into statues by
Phidias and colored by Appelles. Yet this
writer has no monopoly of the art in an
cient Palestine; he shares it with about
sixteen other historians, all Hebrews,
though some of them write Hebrew and
some Greek"
The fact that our Scriptures were
written in the East and that their "char-
acters live forever in the West" is put
in contrast by Mr.. Reade to the fact that
the Koran, the Bible of hundred mil
lion Orientals, is "to your Anglo-Ssxon
the weakest twaddle that ever driveled
from human skull" It is certainly not
least amorg the marvellous elements of
the Bible that it endures transportation
to distant lands, translation into every
tongue and establishes itself easily as the
most precious book of countless multi
tudes of people, differing in race, GUS
toms, ideas and every outward trait, from
the people among whom it originated.
The Independent makes the good,
practical point against some of its New
Theology brethren, that if the doctrine
of second probation, for the heather or
for anybody else, be part of the gospel,
it ought to be preached. Our friends on
both sides of this controversy are hearing
a good deal of truth from each other.
What the Independent says to them is
just what we have often told them. Don't
put your light under bushel, but on a
candlestick. On the other hand, they
are saying to the Independent, and to it's
party, that it cannot be true that gospel
meant to be effective in saving men
should not be permitted to reach one
quarter of them. This, also, is what we
have iterated and reiterated a thousand
times.
The venerable DIR. Baldwin, an hon
ored Baptist clergyman of Troy, said to
us at reception in the Universalist
church of that city, last November, that
he would not give fig for any religion
which does not make a man a good neigh
bor." This is forcible way of putting
a great truth, and one which, in their zeal
for dogma and party, Christians are prone
to forget. We often read in some secular
paper that certain Jones or Brown has
been appointed to civil office; and the
remark follows, "Mr. Brown is stauuch
| Democrat" To the editor that oualifiea-